Punked

Went to the Vivienne Westwood retrospective at the De Young Museum today because it’s too chilly for visiting the redwoods and because there are banners with her mug all over the city. The place was crawling with people in skinny black jeans and studiously messy hair. I’m not a real Westwood fan – I like her 50s throwback suits and her baroque ball gowns cos they are architectural and pretty in an obvious way, and I like that – but I find all her stuff interesting and she sure has been influential. I also admire her rejection of the banal. It’s a tough way to live your life, but more power to her.
Anyhoo, as I was walking around the oddly dark galleries where her clothes were displayed, I kept finding myself standing in front of the same mannequins as Business Barbie (beige jacket, gold stilettos, brown and beige logo bag) and Suburban Gypsy (older, more lipstick, “distressed” skirt and whimsical earrings).
“Oh, that is so cuuute!” they said as they examined a doll-sized white corset atop a bum-exaggerating crinoline skirt. “Oh, that is soooo cute!” they said, pointing at a modern-day pirate’s jacket paired with square-toed shoes. Everything in that dang exhibit was just as cute as a rubber penis-shaped button (Westwood used these for a time in the 80s).
And then Business Barbie found the cutest. Standing before a shiny skintight dress the color of a cat’s tongue, with curious sticky-out bits protruding from the shoulders, she cried, “Oh my god! That. Is. So. Cute!”
Suburban Gypsy: “Oh, yeah. Really cute.”
Business Barbie: “I would totally wear that with white leggings. That would be so cute.”
I can’t imagine what made these ladies think Westwood’s clothes were intended for them. I don’t for a second kid myself that any couture designer has me in mind when they sit down in front of their sketchpad. I just don’t live in that world, and that is fine, although it is nice to take a peek at it every now and then. But BB and SG clearly had aspirations, and that made me feel a little sad for them. Their blandy-blandy identikit outfits would make an ex-punk like Westwood sneer. High fashion is not democratic – it’s just another us-and-them device – and certainly not clothing like that, which squeezes and manipulates your flesh and recalls the champagne and cake-eating days before the French Revolution. Nothing cute about it.
I may just be maudlin because when I ordered my coffee from a sidewalk vendor at Golden Gate Park he asked if I wanted some spiced whisky with it. “That sounds good,” I said. “You’re the first person to say that today,” he replied, taking a paper-bagged bottle from under the counter and sloshing a good couple nips into my cup. I have felt a bit ooky ever since.